Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic transmission for a vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to a planetary gear train of an automatic transmission of a vehicle that improves power delivery performance and reduces fuel consumption by achieving nine forward speed stages using a minimum number of constituent elements.
Description of Related Art
Research on realizing more shift-stages of an automatic transmission has been undertaken to achieve enhancement of fuel consumption and better drivability, and recent increases in oil prices are triggering stiff competition in enhancing fuel consumption of a vehicle.
In this sense, research on an engine has been undertaken to achieve weight reduction and to enhance fuel consumption by so-called downsizing, and research on an automatic transmission has been performed to simultaneously provide better drivability and fuel consumption by achieving more shift stages.
However, in the automatic transmission, as the number of speed stages increase, the number of internal components (particularly, planetary gear sets) increase, which may deteriorate installability, production cost, weight and/or power flow efficiency.
Therefore, in order to maximally enhance fuel consumption of an automatic transmission having more shift stages, it is important for better efficiency to be derived by a smaller number of parts.
In this respect, an eight-speed automatic transmission has been recently introduced, and a planetary gear train for an automatic transmission enabling more shift stages is under investigation.
An automatic transmission of eight or more shift-stages typically includes three to four planetary gear sets and five to six control elements (frictional elements), and may easily become lengthy, thereby deteriorating installability.
In this regard, disposing planetary gear sets in parallel or employing dog clutches instead of wet-type control elements has been attempted. However, such an arrangement is not widely applicable, and using dog clutches may easily deteriorate shift-feel.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.